The Kari AnnAlysis

Last year, I experienced Book Blogger Appreciation Week from the outside. I checked the website, learned about new blogs and hoped that the ones that I already read kicked some major book blogging butt.

This year, I decided to take part. I read through the instructions, looked through my posts and picked the ones I thought made me look the best. I chose 5 reviews that I thought showed that I was decent at what I do. I was semi-pleased with the posts I chose, but quickly realized before I even sent it in, that I had some work to do.

So here are some things I am going to work on for the next year:

*Don’t only post book reviews.I love reading blogs where people just write. I have seen some awesome topics that are still bookish, but are just so much more than blogs. We are writers. That’s what we do. And I was actually checking through a #bblog chat on Twitter recently and someone said something along the lines of “if I wanted to read only reviews, I’d go through a Barnes and Noble.” I never thought of it like that, but I think I worry too much about reviews and not just writing. I know there are many times that I think of a good post, but I forget about it and it never happens. I am changing that. I have already started posting ideas. I’ll start a post with just an idea or two so that I don’t forget them and every time I log on, I see the looming post. Plus, all I really had to turn in this year were reviews and I saw that a lot of the posts I liked the most that others turned in were just posts about books in general, or authors.

*Interview some authors.When I first started blogging, I never thought this would be possible. But now, through Twitter especially, I talk to authors on a daily basis. It’s still crazy to me. I have recently found that most of the authors that I have been reading are on Twitter and will usually write me back or retweet my posts that involve them. Plus, in most of the books I get from publishers, they tell me this could be available if I wanted. I guess I am just now feeling comfortable enough to do this. Maybe….

*Don’t do all memes.I love memes because I love the traffic it brings to my blog. I write these reviews for me. I started writing so I would remember, if I ever needed to, what I liked and didn’t like about a book. But, I still like seeing that other people are at least coming by to see what I am writing about. I am going to stick with a couple of memes though. I still love Teaser Tuesday and will always check Musing Monday and Booking Through Thursday and judge those based on the topic and how much I can discuss it. But this goes back up to the first bullet point of just doing reviews. This helps me do a little more writing, but sometimes it feels like just a cop out and something easy for me to do to get a post up. I think I need to push myself to come up with unconventional topics, rather than wait for someone else to think of them. Now there is one meme type that I really want to work on. I have seen a couple of bloggers do posts with book covers that are similar. I have started making folders and putting similar book covers together. Hopefully in the next couple of months I will be able to get at least one post out of this! I think it’s cute and creative.

*Post more. There are times in the past year that I went a week or two without posts. There are days when I check other blogs every day or so. If they don’t have new posts for me, I’ll stay away for a while. I don’t want people doing that to me. On the other hand though, I do want these to be stellar posts that I may need to spend a day or two working on.

*Schedule posts. I started doing this already. This week, for instance, I posted a review on Tuesday and had posts scheduled for every other day during the week. Now, I don’t have to worry about my posts for at least 5 more days,  unless something comes up that I want to get out there. I have already felt like this has taken a bit of pressure off of me to get posts done. I finished 3 books in the past week and have scheduled their reviews to be posted over a 5 day period. I used to just post them as soon as I got them done, meaning some days I had 2 or 3, then I would go another week without a review.

*Keep my theme awesome. I am a big fan of the theme I have now. It allows me to be creative and change it all the time. I am very phase-y, so I like change. Changing my picture allows me to do that. Speaking of, it’s about time. I think I’m about done at the pool for the year. One thing I do need to work on is spacing. The post I published earlier this week about cupcakes looked great before I saved it, but after I saved, no matter what I did, it didn’t post the way I wanted it to. And no matter how many times I changed and saved, it stayed the same. Simplicity is best

I feel like I am doing a lot of rambling, but I am trying to keep my head clear and let you guys know what is going on in there. New year, new leaf.

What did you learn from other blogs this year?

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